The Steamtug Blog

We had a little cool patch last week, where the forecast top temperature was only 19 degrees. This prompted out local newspaper to write an article claiming a new record. It was the first time in the past 120 days that the temperature has been below 20 degrees. This made it the longest, continuous period of warm weather since records commenced 150 years ago!

Well fortunately for us, the dip was only 1 day with yesterday’s temperature 27 degrees (not bad for mid April!) and the rest of the week forecast to be the mid 20’s. So with the ever present threat of winter approaching, we took the opportunity to go diving while it’s still warm.

With 4 people aboard, Adaqua cruised towards the famous “bird rock”. Famous because everyone around here has a story about a mate that crashed his boat onto bird rock in the middle of the night trying to find the enterance to the North Channel into Geelong. But for us, old Adaqua knows her way around these waters, and at 7 knots everything happens in slow motion so you can spot your mistake before it becomes a surprise.

Running out of fuel!

Before we had left, I calculated that we had 30 litres of fuel aboard; plenty enough for the planned day ahead. I usually never let the tanks go below 100 litres, but with a plan to go on the slipway soon, I had let the level get quite low. About half way to the rock, the engine suddenly died. When I announced to all that the engine stopped because we had run out of fuel, the looks on their faces was priceless! They were all thinking… oh no, it’s another of Mark’s “Gilligan” adventure tours! But their faith in my ability was restored when I opened up the engine cowling and like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, slid 2  20 litre drums of diesel from up my shirt sleeve. We syphoned their contents into the black hole then they watched on curiously as I got down in the engine room, opened the bleed screws on the injector pump and hand cranked the fuel delivery pump. I had never had to do this before, so I just remained calm and pretended I knew what I was doing. I hit the starter and away we went! Whew!!

The water was a little cool, but we managed to stay down for a good 1.5 hours. Although quite shallow (as your mates will recall as part of the crash story) we still managed to see some interesting things like a garden of sea urchins displaying a beautiful marone/purple colour, a small yellow crab hiding in the sea grass, and a big sting ray (a bit more than 1 metre long) that just looked threatening to me as if to say “how’s your mate Steve Irwin?”

Meanwhile, back on the boat, Steve finally tried and suceeded in putting on the wet suit he brought 10 years ago before he got his fat guts. He didn’t want us to watch him trying because it would be too funny to watch this struggle! He tried a swim but decided it was too cold. Mitch on the other hand was trying to keep track of where we were using the dinghy.

We cruised back to Geelong in dead calm conditions with the sea glassed out and the sun shining happily. It was so nice I slowed the engine back to only 1400 rpm to savour the trip in. But after doing this, they all rushed from the top deck thinking we had run out of fuel again!!! Thanks guys for coming with me and making it a fantastic day.